Panda Redone

Who doesn't love a huge plate of chinese food? All of those unique and salty sweet spices are so pleasing to the pallet. Ordering a huge quantity of chow mien and chicken and sitting on the couch and eating as much as you can is so much fun. I was craving me some panda express last week. Rather than running out and buying a 3 item combo from panda express, I though it would be fun to make my own. There are a ton of different recipes online for orange chicken. I find that if you have the few basic ingredients, you can add whatever you want to make up the rest of the sauce. If you don't have every single thing that I used for my orange chicken recipe, that's ok. THe basic ingredients for the orange chicken sauce are orange juice, orange zest, soy sauce, and corn starch. As long as you have those items, you are good to go. You can add other ingredients to fill in the rest of it. The orange juice and zest are a must because... well... we are making orange chicken! You cannot make this without soy sauce. You will need it to bring out that salty flavor. The corn starch is necessary because it will thicken the sauce and help it stick to the chicken. COrn starch is inexpensive and you can find it at any grocery store. Here is how I made the orange chicken:

3 boneless skinless chicken breast cut into bite size peices
1 1/2 cups of orange juice
1/3 cup of soy sauce
2 Tbsp of corn starch
Zest from 1 orange
1/2 cup of ketchup
1/2 cup of crushed pineapple
2 Tbsp of orange marmalade or apricot jam
1/4 cup of white vinegar
pinch of hot red pepper flakes
1 cup of plain bread crumbs
2 Tbsp of canola oil

Take the chicken and marinate it in 1/2 a cup of orange juice. Let it sit and marinate while you are making the sauce.
In a small saucepan, put the vinegar and the ketchup. on low heat, stir together until they are combined. add the soy sauce and the remaining orange juice. Stir together until combined. add the orange zest, pineapple, corn starch and the marmalade (or jam).  Crush the red pepper flakes in the palm of your hand and mix into the sauce. Stir occasionally until the sauce starts to thicken. Once it is thick and bubbling, turn off the heat and cover the pot. Set aside.

Take the chicken and lightly coat it with the bread crumbs. The only reason you are using bread crumbs is to give the sauce a little extra something to stick to, so don't use to much on the chicken. Just a light coating. In a frying pan, heat the canola oil over medium high heat and add the chicken. Cook until the chicken is lightly browned and cooked all the way through. put chicken into a separate serving bowl and pour the sauce over the chicken. stir until the chicken is covered with the sauce. hmmmmm Yummy. Your orange chicken is ready to go!

Now it's time for the noodles.

1 pound of pasta (long noodles)
1 red bell pepper, cut into long thin slices
4 shallots, in half lengthwise and then cut into 2-3 inch pieces
1/3 cup of vinegar
1-2 cups of green snap peas (ends cut off)

Sauce:
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of sesame seed oil
2 Tbsp of chili oil (may use more if you like it spicy)
1/4 cup of white vinegar
1 medium piece of Ginger root. Peel it with a paring knife
3 cloves of garlic

In a large pot, bring water to a boil for the pasta. Once it comes to a boil, add the pasta and stir. reduce the heat to medium and let it cook. about 8-10 minutes. Cook to taste and drain noodles and put into a serving bowl. add the red onions. Take the cut shallots and put into a small bowl. Cover them with the vinegar. This will start to break them down a little and make them not quite as strong. Take the snap peas and put into a small pot of boiling water. Cook for 2-3 min and remove from hot water and place in an ice bath. This will stop the cooking process and keep them bright green and crispy. Add the snap peas to the pasta along with the shallots.
In a glass bowl combine the soy sauce, and the white vinegar. Zest in the garlic and the ginger. Slowly add in the canola oil, chili oil and sesame oil while stirring with a whisk. Pour sauce over the pasta and veggies. Combine.

Enjoy!

Pizza

So I have really been into making pizza lately. When most people think of pizza, I think that the first thing they think of "Oh my gosh I don't have time to cook tonight I think I'll order from Domino's". Pizza can actually be a very classy and wonderful dinner. There are so many different things that you can do with it and you can make it as gourmet as you like. My whole pizza fetish started off when I went to my husband and told him that I would make him anything he wanted for dinner. I said "you say it and I'll make it. I will cook you anything you want to eat". I was expecting him to come back and say something like lamb chops or pork and apples or filet minion. I was totally ready for that. But, to my surprise, he looked at me and said "Honey, I would really like some pizza". I then realized that we had not had pizza since we had been married (We had been married for about five months at this time). I then decided that I would attempt to make him the best pizza he had ever had. I don;t want my dear husband to be deprived of anything. I knew that his favorite pizza toppings were pepperoni and pineapple so I went out to the store and bought the ingredients to make the pizza. While I was shopping I realized that I needed to figure out what to do about dough. My mom had made home made pizza when I was a kid but she used a foccacia dough for her pizza. I resorted to buying a pre-made dough and putting the toppings on it and baking it in the oven. My husband loved it and enjoyed it immensely. Over the next few days I did some research on making your own dough and found out that there are hundreds of different ways to make pizza dough. After much research and a few experiments I think that I have found the easiest and best dough. I tried it out again and my husband loved his pizza even more. I now make this dough quite often and leave it in the freezer and pull it out when I don't have time to cook.

Here is how to make the dough:
1/4 cup of warm water
1 envelope of active dry yeast
1 tsp of sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups of flour
1 1/4 cups of cold water
1TBSP of olive oil

In a small bowl combine the warm water, the yeast and the sugar. stir and let rest. In a food processor or a stand mixer combine the flour and the salt. Add in the yeast mixture and stir. slowly add in the cold water and oil until a ball forms. do not over mix. Remove from the mixer and knead with hands. Put in an oiled bowl and let it rise for one hour.  Remove from the bowl and divide into 2-4 balls. Let rise for another 30 min.  You can then take the dough balls and wrap them is seran wrap and freeze them or, of course, use it for the pizza right away.
Bake 475 for 12-15 min or until the crust is golden brown on the bottom. Bake on a pizza pan with holes in the bottom or on a pizza stone.
If you are going to freeze it make sure that you let it defrost at room temp before you use it.
It is best to bake the dough when it is at room temp, not when it is chilled.

To spread the dough lay the ball out on your cutting board. Press into it with your hands pushing at the thicker parts of the dough and spreading it outward. Do not worry if you cannot form a perfect circle. make the dough as even and flat as you can.

For toppings: Come on people, this is pizza. Put whatever you want on the top.

Have Fun!